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Yet again, Free Character Vault?

This has popped up in the suggestion forums several times in the past, but I feel it is important, now more than ever, to address this. Foundry Virtual Tabletop is gaining traction with its latest updates in the last couple of months, and with the addition of an export feature for Pathbuilder2e, players can import any character they make, easily, into Foundry, and track it in Pathbuilder. This gives Foundry VTT a newfound competitive edge over Roll20, especially since it's a one-time payment purchase, and they also have a store for modules, stories, tokens, etc. Roll20 still has a much better UI and ease of use, so I still prefer it, but the truth is, that it is probable that eventually Foundry may beat Roll20 in ease of use and features, simply due to the ability to import characters freely from Pathbuilder 2e or similar websites for other games, like DnD, Starfinder, etc., which already exist to some degree. Managing your character, keeping track of it, updating it and using it in various games, especially Pathfinder Society games, but even just private games, is quintessential to games like Pathfinder, DnD, etc. It's a core feature of the game. If our gm does not have the ability to be subbed, we are forced to completely re-create our character sheets, even if a copy is sitting in the vault. And if you've played Pathfinder 2e, that's definitely not an easy feat, and quite time-consuming too. It is my belief that character vault import and export features (both) should be completely free to all players, for any game, regardless of if the creator is a subscriber or not. It is a critically important feature, which could make or break a lot of people's relationship with Roll20 and Foundry. Even now Foundry has the edge here due to Pathfbuilder2e, at least for Pathfinder games.
I have to agree here. It didn't use to be such a problem for me but with covid, tight finances and all, and also the fact Foundry does now allow easy import of characters from tools like you mentioned, it does makes it more attractive to just use Foundry, for this sole feature alone, than have to re-create your character sheet for every unique Pathfinder Society one-shot scenario you make, in the case the GM doesn't have a sub. Still, Roll20 is quite cheap so it's really not that big of an issue to me. But I can understand it could be an issue for some users.
1642781513
Kraynic
Pro
Sheet Author
One thing I think is important to mention is that Foundry does not actually provide that.  There are modules by 3rd party developers that provide that functionality and will require the devs of them to maintain them as there are any changes to Foundry, Pathfinder system modules, and the Pathbuilder or Heroforge sources. It is important to keep in mind the difference between actual Foundry features and things provided by modules, because modules are up to the community to keep functional, and so may quit functioning as the sites/applications they translate between change.
1642788850
Gold
Forum Champion
As of Roll20CON 2021 (a couple months ago), Roll20 made the announcement that Character Vault and Charactermancer would (will) be changing.  Their statement "the Charactermancer is coming out" didn't really make sense to me, but whatever that's supposed to mean. I think that something like this, related to this, is already being developed.  I'd like to believe that Suggestion threads like this would be read and answered by the Devs who are making those changes.
You're absolutely right and it does change the narrative a little bit -- but as far as I'm aware, Roll20 still only provides access to such tools on the highest subscription tier, which yet again still falls under the same issue. Even if such module was also developed for Roll20, it would still be behind a paywall. That, and also, no one has a reason to do so, given that they can just import and export characters already if they have access to dev. tools, so they wouldn't have a need to make a module for it in the first place. Kraynic said: One thing I think is important to mention is that Foundry does not actually provide that.  There are modules by 3rd party developers that provide that functionality and will require the devs of them to maintain them as there are any changes to Foundry, Pathfinder system modules, and the Pathbuilder or Heroforge sources. It is important to keep in mind the difference between actual Foundry features and things provided by modules, because modules are up to the community to keep functional, and so may quit functioning as the sites/applications they translate between change.
Jackaboi said: Foundry Virtual Tabletop is gaining traction with its latest updates in the last couple of months, and with the addition of an export feature for Pathbuilder2e, players can import any character they make, easily, into Foundry, and track it in Pathbuilder. This gives Foundry VTT a newfound competitive edge over Roll20, especially since it's a one-time payment purchase, and they also have a store for modules, stories, tokens, etc I join in the chorus of wanting a feature like this . Especially if it includes the possibility to import character data from tools like PCGen in addition to Herolab and Pathbuilder. This will not only make Roll20 competitive with Foundry, it will offload the character bookkeeping of crunchy rules systems to more mature tools.
1645524726
Roll20 Dev Team
Pro
Marketplace Creator
Thanks for the suggestion! After 30 days, Suggestions and Ideas with fewer than 10 votes are closed and the votes are refunded to promote freshness. Your suggestion didn't build the right momentum this time, but feel free to submit it again! We find that the best suggestions describe the problem you are having, and the solution you want. You can learn more about the process of making suggestions on the Roll20 Wiki! More details can be found here .